This article appears in a condensed form in a collection of thoughts from American Foundation for Suicide Prevention volunteers asked to reflect on the theme of community. Read the complete collection, “What Community Means to Me: Personal Reflections from American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Volunteers,” here.
Learn more about how you can get involved volunteering with AFSP here.
On September 2, 2021, I lost my husband Nate to suicide. I didn’t know what to do with that loss. Grief after suicide is complicated. There are questions that will never be answered, and a silence that seems so loud. That love needed a place to go, now that Nate wasn’t there to receive it. I found my way to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention because I needed somewhere to channel that pain. I needed purpose.
This October 3rd, I'll be participating in my fifth year of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention's Northern Rhode Island Out of the Darkness Walk at Roger Williams Park. What started as a way to channel my grief has grown into something bigger than me. Along the way, I found a community that has carried me through grief and given me a place to put my love for Nate to work.
I walk now not just for Nate, but for myself as a survivor of loss; for my friend Carl, who we lost two years ago; and for the members of my support group and the loved ones they've lost. I’ve met other AFSP volunteers though not only our Rhode Island chapter, but across the country. With every AFSP Walk, event, conference and International Survivors of Suicide Loss Day event, that community grows. I know that I’m not alone in this profound grief, and the desire to do something purposeful with it.
That's the community I've found through AFSP: people who understand, who show up for each other, and who turn grief into purpose together.
Find an Out of the Darkness Walk near you.
